


Have I Got Your Attention Now ...?

by troubled_midnight



Category: Star Trek Into Darkness - Fandom, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: BDSM, Eventual Smut, F/M, John Harrison - Freeform, Khan Noonien Singh - Freeform, Pre-Star Trek: Into Darkness, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-03
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-02-23 21:38:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2556665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/troubled_midnight/pseuds/troubled_midnight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My pulse stutters and my gun’s drawn and aimed even though I know he’s unarmed, because he won’t need a weapon to kill me. His lips curve with a ghost of a smile that goes nowhere near his eyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have a *very* soft spot for Khan, and after whimpering my way through Star Trek: Into Darkness a truly embarrassing number of times, this story showed up in my head and just wouldn't leave me alone until I started writing it. Please do let me know if you like it - there's more written ready to be posted if this little intro finds a readership ...

I’ve been watching him for almost half an hour now through the one-way mirror-glass window of the closet-sized space that serves as back office and living space. I always make them wait – their reactions tell me more about them than they ever would themselves. They’re always in a hurry, desperate more often than not, and after ten minutes max most of them are either banging on the glass and shouting obscenities or storming out the way they came in, threatening me with retribution we both know they can never bring.

My specialty is finding things people want, some of them legit, most of them not – hardware and wetware, black-market weapons and pharma, secrets and scandals every bit as deadly as a blade in the dark. I’m the best in the business and I make them wait to test their commitment to getting what they've come for. You'd be surprised how few of them pass the test. Or maybe not. Patience is a virtue long since gone the way of the dodo and the dinosaur.

And then, once in a blue moon, someone really interesting shows up.

His ident chip says his name is John Harrison, but a minute’s work tells me that’s a pile of crap. It’s one of the better fakes, government job, but it’s still easy enough to spot them if you know what you’re looking for. He’s a striking man – there’s not much you can do to disguise a well-muscled six-foot-tall body, and he’s not even trying. Black hair, skin so pale it’s almost blue, high, sharp cheekbones, sensual lips as bloodless as his complexion, eyes an astonishing emerald green that’s vivid even from several feet away and through the smoky barrier of the mirror glass. I can feel the energy roiling off him, a mix of arrogance and contempt orbiting a rage so vast it’s as corporeal as he is. Ruthless. Focused. Lethal. He hasn’t moved since he sat down and closed his eyes, completely at ease and hair-trigger alert. The instincts that are so very good at keeping me alive are screaming at me, but if I have a flaw that’ll end me, it’s a total inability to resist a bad boy. Especially when they show up on my doorstep entirely of their own volition.

On the exact stroke of thirty minutes, his eyes snap open and his gaze finds mine unerringly behind the glass. My pulse stutters and my gun’s drawn and aimed even though I know he’s unarmed, because he won’t need a weapon to kill me. His lips curve with a ghost of a smile that goes nowhere near his eyes.

“You won’t be needing that.” His voice is as compelling as the rest of him, authoritative, richly measured, every consonant precise. “I have no interest in you beyond the information you are going to give me, and even less in hurting you.” His eyes narrow then, and the predatory gleam in them raises every hair on my body from crown to toe. “Although I have been told you might enjoy that. Cash isn’t the only currency, after all, and payment in kind might be more of an incentive to you.”

He’s on his feet and standing right in front of me almost before I’ve registered the movement. His gaze is still locked with mine and his breath mists the glass between us when he speaks.

“If you are as good as they say, you know where to find me. You have exactly one hour. Come if you want to do business. You would be a fool to waste my time.”

I blink and he’s gone. But the image of him remains, burned on my retinas as if I’ve stared too long at the sun.


	2. “Shall I destroy you …? Or will you give me what I want?”

Of course I know where he's staying, and of course I'm going - it's rare the exchange of information only travels one way, and perhaps he'll be more forthcoming on his own turf. I don’t like it when clients know more about me than I do about them, and given that my official ident is as bland and bogus as his, he already knows more than he should. Only a handful of people could have told him anything personal, so he must have tracked down at least one of them. Here's hoping the poor bastard's still alive. Given his obvious talent for extracting information all by himself, I have to wonder what his real reason is for coming to me. He's probably looking for a decoy, cannon fodder to distract the authorities while he finds whatever he's come for and disappears like smoke on a breeze. I'm nobody's fool, but curiosity is a terrible failing. 

He's right that I take remuneration in a variety of forms. Not everyone who comes looking for my services has the credits to pay, but in my business favours owed can be more useful than any amount of cash, and I'm not exactly short of funds. Sometimes I'll play the negotiation game purely for the hell of it, to keep me sharp. If a client's interesting enough, or clever enough, or just downright dangerous enough, the encounter is its own reward. Something tells me this "John Harrison" is going to tick all those boxes and more, if I'm very lucky. People with the skillset to satisfy my proclivities are few and far between, and this cold-eyed bastard certainly has potential.

I give myself half an hour for second thoughts and second guesses, but it's a pointless exercise as my mind was made up the moment I laid eyes on him. I head out into the neon-spiked darkness with more questions than answers and let the city's humid stench drag me back into the moment. Atarashii Tokyo is a cesspool, corrupt from the imperial palace's _irimoya-zukuri_ gables to Shinjuku's gutter- _burakumin_. The Yakuza families value their privacy and independence, and there are areas off the surveillance grid if you know where to look - my place is in one, he's staying in another. I'll walk the distance between them in fifteen minutes, which leaves me fifteen for reconnaissance. Another pointless exercise, no doubt, but an abundance of caution is a character flaw I can live with.

He's staying in the heart of Kabukicho, the city's red-light district, in what the Japanese with their passion for euphemism call a "love hotel" - establishments with rooms to rent by the hour which service the needs of those who can afford the luxuries of space and privacy with soundproof walls. His impassive demeanour notwithstanding, the man clearly has a sense of humour - the place he's picked is an unholy union of Shōgun-chic and Hammer House of Horror melodrama that redefines the word "ghastly," but at least I've been here before, which saves me the hassle of hacking the floor plans.

A night porter owes me a favour that buys me the passcode to the service elevator and back stairs. The upper floors are all tatami mats and shōji screens. I doubt that's where I'll find him and he doesn't disappoint. He's below ground, where the vibe is more Ken Russell _Gothic_ than Kurosawa. The clever boy is in a room I know has an access panel in the floor leading down to the Marunouchi Line and a quick ride to Tokyo Station, the Shinkansen and a speedy get-away. It's also at the end of a particularly long, gloomy corridor, and aside from that access panel in the floor, the main entrance is the only way in.

I stand to one side as the door whispers open. Force of habit - the precaution puts me out of the line of sight of anyone inside who might be inclined to shoot me, although I'm not really expecting any drama. Not yet, anyway. I pause on the threshold while my eyes adjust to the moodily lit interior - candles in dramatic candelabra provide the only illumination, and there's a vast wrought-iron-framed bed in the middle of all that flickering light. I know from past experience that the wooden chests and cabinets scattered around are well stocked with instruments of pleasure and pain to satisfy even the most esoteric tastes, and my heart beats just a little faster as I wonder what currency he'll choose to pay me.

Which brings my attention to the man reclining on the bed, framed against blood-red silk and ornate metal scrollwork. He's still dressed entirely in black, the only relief from the unrelenting darkness the corpse-pale skin of his face and hands. Those hands are distracting - elegant, long-fingered, currently interlaced across his abdomen but as alive with expressive potential as that recurve bow of a mouth. The humidity has softened his slicked-back hair and a lock of it has fallen over his pale brow. I want to smooth it back into place, take fistfuls of it to pull those lips against mine and bite some colour into them.

His voice is a surprise even though I'm expecting it. "Come here. I do not bite." He pauses a beat or two to gauge my reaction. "In fact, you have my word that I will not even touch you until you beg me to."

I have a pretty good poker face and I know all my tells, but there are autonomic responses I can’t suppress without the kind of chemical assistance I have no intention of putting between my reflexes and this predator. I know my pupils are dilating and there’s not a damn thing I can do to stop my nipples hardening or the rush of warmth in my solar plexus. The smug quirk of his lips confirms he’s aware of my reactions. I shrug and take the step inside. The door sighs shut behind me but I stay right where I am – that’s close enough for now.

As he scans me from head to foot, his expression hardens. “I told you before that you will not require your weapon. Put it on the floor. Now.”

There’s no way in hell I’m voluntarily disarming myself, and some twitch of my hand or eye must give me away because he’s off that bed and across the room before I’ve blinked twice. He’s standing as close as he can without touching, palms flat against the door and arms braced on either side of me. His height and build are impressive, but it’s the energy seething off him that stops my breath in my chest. I make the mistake of meeting his gaze, and the savage light in their depths makes me even more determined to keep hold of my gun for as long as I can.

“Give me the gun or I will take it from you.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

His answering smile is feral. “You only had to ask.”

My instinct is to drop to the floor but he’s way too quick for me. He slams me back against the door, one knee between my legs to keep me upright as he grabs my wrists and forces my arms above my head. Both wrists are soon in the iron grip of a single fist, fine bones grinding together as my heart rate spikes, and I taste the metallic surge of adrenaline on the back of my tongue. I struggle instinctively but there’s really no point. He’s easily immobilizing me with one hand, breathing completely normally despite the explosive burst from the bed.

“The more you struggle, the more entertaining it is for me,” he says as he pats me down thoroughly and efficiently with his free hand. The gun in its shoulder holster is easily found and dropped to the floor, then he moves his knee and spins me around to face the door, adjusting his grip on my wrists as his knee slides between my thighs again. He finds the knife without much bother, and finally the high-pressure syringe disguised as a stylus. A bit James Bond, I know, but people miss it more often than not and it’s saved my ass a few times. Knife and syringe join the gun on the floor.

Job done, he leans his solid chest against my back, slowly, inexorably squeezing the breath from my lungs. His free hand is now around my throat, firm pressure from those hard-as-steel fingers against my carotid arteries. I can’t draw a breath with his muscular weight against me, and the heavy throbbing of my heart is loud in my ears as my vision fades to stars and darkness. As I slip into unconsciousness, I feel his teeth sink into the back of my neck.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wherein Khan gets a bit handsy and our heroine a bit lippy ...

Awareness returns like a migraine and I swallow hard against the bile rising in my throat. Swallowing _hurts_. My eyes snap open and even the subdued candlelight stabs at my retinas. As I turn my head in search of shadows, a whole new agony flares at the back of my neck. The pain reboots fragments, shards of memory . . . _Sharp teeth breaking skin … Fucker bit me._ I try to raise my hands to assess the damage, panic spiking as I realize my wrists are tied together behind my back. Fight-or-flight instincts scan the rest of my body for information and options – I’m sitting on a chair, legs not tied together or to the chair. Flight wins the coin-toss easily and calves and thighs tense to bolt.

“Don’t.”

The clipped monosyllable stills me and I track the voice to the bed where he’s lying on his side, head propped up on one long-fingered hand, watching me impassively. He’s a couple of feet away and I’m tempted to disobey, pointless though the gesture of defiance will be.

“Do as you are told or I _will_ make you.”

I notice several coils of what looks like hemp or jute rope lying on the bed within easy reach, and it would be the work of mere moments to tie me to the chair. On balance, I prefer to keep what little mobility I have left, so I lean back and will the instinctive tension from my muscles. He registers my acquiescence with a slight nod.

“Your recuperative abilities are . . . surprising – you resurfaced quicker than I was expecting.”

That’s probably a compliment coming from him, but it doesn’t change the fact that he has the advantage for the time being. At least I’m still fully clothed.

“Come now.” The knowing glint in his eye suggests he has a pretty good idea what I’m thinking. “Where would be the sport in that? We have barely started yet.” He shifts position – the motion fluid, silk over steel – to sit on the edge of the bed and locks his gaze with mine. “Shall we begin?”

My reaction to that is equal parts terror and arousal, which only intensifies when he stands and paces around the chair. As I turn my head to keep him in sight, he grabs my hair with one hand and pulls my head back, exposing my throat. He leans over me and brings his lips to the pulse-point beneath my jaw where his fingers so recently squeezed the consciousness out of me. Each inhale and exhale is a promise and a threat whispered across my skin, and I shiver as he licks a long, wet stripe along the curve of my jaw. He drags a small, helpless sound from me as he bites down on the soft, sensitive flesh of my earlobe. Then his tongue is on the move again, the very tip tracing a hot line around to the back of my neck, and I flinch as he licks the bite mark he left earlier. He winds my hair around his palm for a firmer grip as his lips press against bitten skin. He begins to suck. Hard. I flinch at the combination of painful stimuli, now accompanied by the unexpectedly gentle counterpoint of the fingertips of his other hand tracing over my collarbones and up my throat to hold my chin gently but firmly in the crook of his thumb and forefinger. As his fingers find the bruises he left earlier, I wonder if he’s going to choke me again. He’s still sucking and nipping at the bite mark on the back of my neck. I’m sure he has my blood on his lips by now, and the image of a crimson smear across that Kabuki pallor has me biting my tongue to suppress a groan.

I feel his lips curve into a smile against the back of my neck as he ghosts his fingertips along the taut line of my throat and down over the front of my body, a thin button-down shirt the only barrier between his probing fingers and my breasts, ribs, belly. He runs his tongue from the back of my neck to the curve where neck meets shoulder, pausing to suck another mark on my skin while his fingers trace each rib. As his teeth sink into my trapezius, he pinches one of my nipples, hard, drawing a ragged moan from my throat. He goes back to sucking and nipping as he trails his fingertips across my sternum towards my other breast, then repeats the bite-and-pinch. As my spine bows in response, he tightens his grip on my hair and sets a tormenting rhythm with three points of contact – hand in my hair, lips and teeth on my shoulder, fingers pinching and rolling my already aching nipples. My eyes flutter closed as the sensations begin to overwhelm me, pain and pleasure, pleasure and pain, an endorphin-fuelled feedback loop that silences thought and makes me wet.

And then he steps away, releasing my hair, shoulder, nipple, and returns to sit in front of me on the edge of the bed. I can still feel his teeth and fingers on me, the cool air raising gooseflesh where his mouth has been. That wasn’t nearly enough to satisfy me and he absolutely knows it, so clearly we’ve entered the bargaining part of the evening’s entertainment.

“Call that an advance payment in good faith.”

I stick my tongue out at him, and the flash of unguarded surprise that flickers across his features almost makes up for the knot of frustration currently tangling in my belly. And then those eyes turn calculating, assessing, and I’m pretty sure I’m going to hate and love whatever the punishment for my childishness will be. So long as this doesn’t end here, before we’ve even begun, I don’t really care. I’ll take what he can give, and I’m pretty sure that won’t be the only time I surprise this cocky fucker.

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Passing reference to blood-play, in case that's not your thing.

He doesn’t waste breath explaining what he’s about to do, rising instead and crossing purposefully to one of the room’s many cabinets. This one is styled like an apothecary’s chest, with myriad drawers of varying sizes, and he stands between me and the chest while he makes his selection. 

“You may be about to regret giving me the full hour before showing up. I have an excellent memory.”

Oh, but of _course_ he does. In retrospect, an hour was probably long enough for him to memorize the entire contents of every cabinet in the room, and since I only hear one drawer slide open and snap shut, he’s found what he was looking for on the first try. 

“I have half a mind to blindfold you and make you guess, but sensory deprivation is not a game to be rushed. And you have work to do.”

He moves to stand in front of me, close but not touching, and I allow my gaze a leisurely glide up his muscular chest before meeting his eyes. My heart’s doing its trapped-bird dance again as I watch his irises bleed from opal to black – a little defiance pushes his buttons, apparently. So I’m not the only one with tells. Good to know. 

The last thing I’m expecting him to do is drop gracefully to his knees in front of me, and I let the surprise show in my eyes.

“I think you may have this the wrong way around.”

He tuts at me as if I’m a backward child. “Do I look remotely submissive to you, even kneeling down?” If contempt were a blade, I’d be bleeding.

I cast an appraising eye over him again, just for the hell of it, and have to concede the point. “I doubt you’d look submissive wearing cuffs and locked in a holding cell.” His ego’s big enough without me voicing my next thought: _And the only way you’d find yourself in that situation is if you allowed it to happen._

“Spread your legs.”

My hesitation is instinctive, but he doesn’t put his hands on me to force compliance. Instead he sits back on his heels and holds up the item he retrieved from the cabinet. Items, in fact – two chopsticks, two elastic bands. My involuntary wince when he begins to wind an elastic band around the thicker ends of the chopsticks tells him I’m no stranger to this particular torment.

He leans towards me then, until there’s barely a hair’s-breadth of space between his lips and mine. “Do as you are told or we are done.”

He knows he has me, and there’s a glint of triumph in his eyes when I spread my legs for him. He moves between my knees, the solid bulk of him forcing them wider apart until his chest is almost flush with mine. I flinch a little as his fingers make contact with my inner thigh, but there’s nowhere for me to go. I can feel the heat emanating from him through the fabric of my jeans, and my legs flex automatically on either side of his ribs as his fingers graze the button fly. But his hand continues moving until he reaches the top button of my shirt, which he flicks open with casual dexterity. His nails draw lines of fire on my skin as he trails them to the next button, and the next, until my shirt is open to the waist. He folds the fabric back to expose my breasts, nipples already swollen and red from his earlier attentions.

He circles a fingertip around one nipple and I can’t suppress a hiss when thumb and forefinger inevitably pinch, then roll, then pull to elongate the oversensitive erectile tissue. “Such pale, unblemished skin. A blank canvas, just begging for wax—” _pinch_ “—for lips and teeth and fingernails—” _roll_ “—for crops and canes and whips—” _pull_ “—for blades …” That last makes me squirm, and it doesn’t go unnoticed. His smile is a cruel thing. “Do your job well and I will let you choose the knife.” I try to push my body against his, desperate for more contact, but a firm hand against my sternum keeps me exactly where I am. 

He shakes his head and raises the chopsticks. I hold my breath in anticipation of the pain, but when he makes no further move I realise he’s waiting for me to ask him to hurt me. His head is tilted slightly to one side, and he blinks once, twice, before I nod, not trusting myself to speak. For a couple of breaths I think he’s going to insist I use my words, but the nod is sufficient invitation. For now, at least. The ivory is cold against my abused flesh as he traps my nipple between them, and I’m biting my lip by the time he finishes securing the free ends with another elastic band. My spine arches when he rubs his palm over the tip. He leans in and licks, and when his teeth nip the aching hardness, I bite my lip so hard I taste blood. 

He trails a thumb down my cheek and smears the blood across my lower lip. I’m licking the metallic taste from his skin before I can stop myself, and when he pushes his thumb between my lips, I curl my tongue around it.

“Why am I not surprised to learn you have an oral fixation?”

I shrug and continue the tongue action, adding a little suction to make it more interesting. 

“I should use those chopsticks on your insolent tongue and fuck your mouth until you scream.”

His other hand is around the back of my neck before I can pull away. Which is probably just as well since anything I might have to say at this juncture would only add insult to insolence, and I’m in enough trouble as it is. But his eyes are locked with mine, and I wonder if he knows his blown pupils are telling me he’s not as unaffected by this exchange as he’d like me to believe. 

Time to test a theory. 

His fingers are in my hair again, so I relax into the palm of his hand and draw his thumb further into my mouth, adding a little drag of teeth to the equation. His lips part ever so slightly, and I don’t resist as he fists my hair and pulls my head back, elongating my neck and baring my throat. I keep the suction constant as he pulls his thumb from my mouth and drags it across my bottom lip. He doesn’t stop me this time when I wrap my legs around his hips to pull him closer, and as he brings his lips and teeth to my throat, I feel the satisfying hardness of his erection slide against my groin and belly. 

“Be careful what you wish for.”

The movement of his lips as he whispers against my throat raises gooseflesh over every inch of my skin.

“I’m always careful.”

“What you are doing right now is the antithesis of careful. It would take such little effort to end you.”

I know it’ll cost me, but it’s worth it to see his reaction when his own words from earlier slip so easily from my mouth: “Come now – where would be the sport in that?”


End file.
